LEXINGTON -- Carol
Watson leaned over to Anna Geer and in a loud voice asked, "How
does it feel to be 107?"
Geer's first response
was a youthful giggle. Then she answered in earnest.
Watson leaned over
again: "How old are you?" And with just a moment's
hesitation, Geer answered: 26.
But if that were true,
it would be 1928. Instead, it's 2009 and on Wednesday Geer turned 107.
Geer lives at the
Watson Manor in Lexington, where she sat on her birthday with cake and
ice cream in front of her, balloons nearby, paper streamers above and
a lei around her neck.
She sits in a
wheelchair, has trouble hearing anything less than a gentle yell and
her full head of hair is a delicate white.
Still, she defies her
age: she smiles and laughs regularly, she interacts better than many
of her (relatively) younger housemates -- and she still can blow out
her own birthday candles.
"She is always
smiling," Watson, the manor's owner, said.
Her son, Paul Geer, 71,
said his mom only takes one pill (a blood thinner for a clot in her
leg) and the last time she had her blood pressure checked, it was a
perfect reading.
"I'm not
surprised," Paul said of his mother's old age. "She never
takes medicine. She never really had anything wrong with her. She's a
very happy lady.
"And she just
believes God is going to take care of her." So far, He has.
Anna Geer was born in
1902 in Kansas and moved to Michigan about 67 years ago.
She was married to her
husband Earl for 77 years. Earl served as a Methodist minister for
years in Michigan and died at 100.
Geer is the mother of
four children, grandmother of 15, great grandmother of many more and
great-great-grandmother of two.
For years, she served
in the church alongside her husband. Nine of those years were spent as
missionaries in China.
At 65 years old -- when
Earl retired -- Anna went to college and earned a nursing degree.
For 20 years, until the
age of 85, she worked as a nurse, much of that time at the Marwood
Manor in Port Huron.
Paul said when he went
to visit her when she was a nurse, "she would tell all the funny
stories about all the 'old' people."
Before the celebration
at Watson Manor, Paul took his mother out to lunch.
He said Anna had bacon
and potato soup, a hamburger, french fries, coffee "and ate it
all."
Throughout the
celebration, Anna looked around at the dozen or so people -- including
some strangers -- and smiled.
